<A House Made Out of Paper >

After joining a zoom meeting with Dorothy Edward, hosted by Bridge Project last week

;I’ve been on this subject for a while…through my works ; <Where is My Home?>, < There are Many Rooms in My Father’s House >, and <We are All Going to the Promised Land> which I posted months go here.

Through this COVID 19 Pandemic. Being an empty nester, moving with just suit cases, living in a temporary housing, not being able to meet my family for long and not being able to return to where I built community over the last ten years…

Those conditions made me question more about ‘Home-ness’ and‘Homeless-ness’. I identify myself as someone in between, constantly.

When I saw the prompt questions on the chat box, “What make you feel like home?”, my answer was, “ smell of food (especially Korean and Indonesian food) and smell of candle.” Oh, I forgot to write ‘Malaysian food’ too! Grew up in a family that food has been always centering and gelling family and community, the smell of food bring me into moments of being with my loved. And ‘candle’, that I lit in my space as ritual of diving deeper into my inner self, giving myself to the one who sees me, even now, while I’m writing it. I find that when mentioning both smell, actually is representing ‘Home’ as space which giving my physical and spiritual need.

Then, when Dorothy shared about her story of being a ‘real’ homeless for many years in the past and now living in a home with walls and roof, became an advocate for more people like herself may have access to get opportunity to move into a house from a street, was powerful!

Her story gave tangible shape, smell and live sound to blurred vision of seeing homeless-ness as political or ideological issues that sometimes made me feel just to avoid facing the reality.

My concern and struggle in my life seemed so small when I thought of millions of people out there facing countless hardship, trying to fight to keep any human dignity left in their body in the pit of undesirable situation.

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One’s story can open up a new door in hearts of others.

Someone’s story might be an answer to another.

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And, I hope, mine does something to others too.

And, I hope that we will still find beauty in each other’s eyes.

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Mean time, I’m making.

I am making another useless but hopeful house with papers.

Used paper bags, used as table cover and my scraps of painted mulberry paper joined together, becoming house nobody can live in…

Hoping, perhaps some souls may find rest in it …